Daido Six
}} Daidō Seikō (大同精工), the predecessor of Takane, brought out the Daido Six in December 1953. It is a rangefinderless folder whose body was based on that for the Mihama Six. It has two finders, for 6×6 and 4.5×6; and two windows, each with a sliding mask, for film numbers. Like all its successors from Takane, the Daido comes with a 75mm f3.5 lens. This one is named C. Daido Anastigmat and has front-cell focusing; it was from a dealer in Ikebukuro (Tokyo).Lens from Ikebukuro: Hagiya, p. 131. The NKS shutter provides for speeds of 1–200 and B and is synchronized for flash. As the photographer views the camera from above, the film wind knob is on the left and what appears to be a knob with a milled edge is on the right; the latter is a dummy that unscrews. An accessory shoe is left of centre; just in front of this is a button to release the door. Right of centre is the shutter release button, which has no provision for a cable release: the cable release screws directly into the shutter. Two variants have been observed: * Top plate engraved Daido MODEL-I; the uppermost area of the top plate is rectangular, and a lower area is simple, without a concave form around either the film winding knob or the dummy knob on the left. Viewed from the front, the uppermost part of the top plate slopes down toward the left, rather than dropping directly down. Pictured in , p. 239, and in this page at Japan Family Camera. * Top plate engraved Daido Six MODEL-II; the uppermost area of the top plate extends a little way in front of the accessory shoe and thus is no longer a simple rectangle; there is a concave area part of the way around each of the film winding knob and the the dummy knob on the left. Viewed from the front, the uppermost part of the top plate drops straight down next to the shutter release button. Illustrated in Hagiya, pp. 130 31. At the rear of the Model-II, just below the accessory shoe, is a thumbwheel marked 4.5×6 and 6×6. Turning this slides a red mask that obscures either one of the two finder windows. No such thumbwheel is visible in the photograph on the Japan Family Camera website of the rear of a Model-I; the small photograph hints that a slider may be to the right of the finder eyepieces.Daido Six. The front of the door of the Model-II has a decorative silver plate marked Daido. The hinges of the struts are inscribed DAIDO. No company name appears anywhere on the exterior of the camera, but oddly the film pressure plate is marked DAIDOSEIKO. The film mask consists of a pair of hinged metal flaps. The lens is calibrated in feet. The Daido Six (Model-I) is advertised in the December 1953 issue of Asahi Camera for . It was distributed by Satsuki Shashin Shōkai together with the Amiflex. At the same time as the Daido Six, Daidō announced the Daido Semi, for 4.5×6 only, based on the Semi Mihama. The successor of the Daido Six would be the Sisley 1. Notes Sources / further reading * Item 581. * Hagiya Takeshi (萩谷剛). "Mine Shikkusu: Gunma-ken Takasaki-shi no kameramēkā" (ミネシックス：群馬県高崎市のカメラメーカー, Mine Six: A camera-maker in Takasaki, Gunma). Chapter 7 of This history of Takane is based on Hagiya's interviews with four people who had been key figures in the company. * P. 83 (brief mention only). * P. 239. Links In Japanese: * Daido Six: a terse page about the Daido Six, with photographs, at the Japan Family Camera website Category: Japanese 6x6 viewfinder folding Category: D